What Might Have Been
by Dara Tavar
Summary: David asks Rachel about if they could go back and change everything, if things could have been different only if they'd done something else... Rachel can't help but imagining how her life might have been... This is just a short story, only a few hundred words, so there's not much I can say without giving everything (and I mean everything) away. :D R&R please!


**Okay, so this is just a short story that I planned on writing months ago, and got around to writing finally. It's when David asks Rachel about if they could go back and change things. Well, not sure what else to say...so...Enjoy!  
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**What Might Have Been**

"If we could go back…if I'd waited for you…if you'd come…would it have been different?" David asked suddenly, changing the subject instead of answering Rachel's question. It was something that had plagued him for years, something that had haunted him during the day and kept him awake through the night. It was something that he needed an answer to, and something that he couldn't wait any longer for.

Rachel opened her mouth to say something, but before she could get anything out an image arose in her mind that she couldn't shake while looking into David's face. Thoughts of what her life may have been like should she have only ran away with David when he'd asked her to…if she'd only done what her heart had told her to do…

_Rachel moved out of the house, closing her eyes and smiling into the warmth of the bright sun. Stepping down from the porch in her bare feet, her smile widened as she flexed her toes and buried them in the sand._

_When she opened her eyes, his face was the first thing she saw. He stood several feet away, a smile playing at the corners of his lips as he watched her. Without saying a word, she moved forward and took his hand and they walked along the beach hand-in-hand without needing to say anything._

_Love filled her heart as she looked over at him. Her David, finally with her, forever and ever. Her soul mate, the love of her life…there was nowhere else that she would rather be than here with him. It had been the best decision she'd ever made to leave with him when he'd asked her to run off with him._

"_Mommy!" a happy, high pitched voice called out._

_Rachel turned, quickly lowering the tray with lemonade and glasses on it to the stand where their seats were. Opening her arms, she caught the little boy in her arms with a laugh, hugging him close and picking him up._

_When she looked over, she watched as David caught Sarah in his arms and tossed her into the air, catching her again as she giggled and clung to him. Her heart melted a little when he kissed the daughter who wasn't biologically his, but that he'd taken in as his own that night when they'd run away together._

_They sat the children down and watched as they ran back to the water together, waving over their shoulders before jumping into the waves._

_Rachel allowed David to pull her into his arms, smiling as he leaned down to kiss her lovingly. Life couldn't be more perfect…_

"We can't go back…" Rachel replied, forcing away her thoughts, her deepest wishes. There was nothing that could be done now, nothing that could be changed. And it was better not to dwell on the _what might have been'_s and to focus on the present.

David remained quiet for a moment, his eyes sad and locked on her. "I'm sorry," he finally told her in a small voice. He couldn't think of anything else to say to her.

"Come tomorrow," she insisted, returning to their previous topic. "We'll talk then?"

He gave a tiny smile that Rachel wasn't certain if it meant that he would come or not. She merely nodded in response and turned away. But once her back was turned, she couldn't hold back the pain anymore, it was just too much—this confrontation, the memories she'd repressed, the desires she'd never let herself face…it was all too much for her to handle without a single outward show of emotion.

As she walked out of the doors, fighting the urge to look over her shoulder at the only man she'd ever really loved, a single tear slipped down her cheek as the longing swelled up in her chest for what might have been.


End file.
